Davos: French President Francois Hollande urged business leaders gathered in Davos Friday to take action in the fight against extremism, saying the financial sector could help by cutting off funding sources.

The French leader addressed an audience of the global business elite two weeks after attacks in Paris against magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket killed 17 and shocked the world.

This was Hollande`s first major speech to the world`s financial leaders since taking office. Campaigning in 2012, he said he considered finance his "real enemy."

"You, the lifeblood of the economic world, the biggest bosses of companies around the world, I ask you not only to be watchful but to also get involved," Hollande said to a packed audience.

"I call on the financial system to ensure that the sources of financing for terrorists are dried up," he said.

He also urged "major digital corporations to play their role, to identify illegal content and to make them inaccessible and to establish clear rules, because you are also stakeholders".

"You cannot have prosperity without security," said the French leader.

With his call for business leaders to adopt a higher sense of responsiblity, Hollande followed a Davos tradition for French leaders.